Mission and Menace: Four Centuries of American Religious Zeal

Observing that Abraham Lincoln once described the United Statesas an "almost chosen nation," Robert Jewett offers a critical surveyof the history of America's self-understanding as a nation enjoyingboth divine blessing and a God-given vocation as a "city on a hill."

From beginnings at Jamestown, Jewett shows, the Americanmythology of divine mission has decisively shaped both domesticand foreign policies of the developing nation, and it remains one ofthe most important forces affecting the United States' role in theworld today. Chapters include:

Colonial Beginnings: The City Set Upon a Hill

The Second Great Awakening, Manifest Destiny, Reform andReaction

From the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War

The Political Distortion of Religion: TriumphantFundamentalism, Impeachment, and the War against Terrorismand more.

Written in the tradition of Howard Zinn's A People's History of theUnited States, the volume includes black and white illustrations.